The package retrieves public ArcGIS data; it does not host or archive the records. This article describes the checked catalog’s coverage and source limits that matter when using the data.
Bundled publishers
The package checks the following layers and searches each publisher’s
public ArcGIS organization. Counts come from the bundled
datasets.json and portals.json registries.
| Publisher or jurisdiction | Checked layers | Live discovery |
|---|---|---|
| Tampa | 20 | Yes |
| St. Petersburg | 7 | Yes |
| Clearwater | 6 | Yes |
| Hillsborough County | 8 | Yes |
| Pinellas County | 7 | Yes |
| Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council | 4 | Yes |
The 52 checked layers are a selection, not a publisher inventory. Live discovery can find others, subject to portal indexing, availability, and scan limits. The discovery article explains scan completeness; the catalog policy records selection criteria, topic coverage, and layer-specific limits.
Interpret source scope before analysis
Tampa’s permits and development cases are active views, not complete
historical ledgers. Its city-boundary follows a shoreline
representation, not a legal survey, and water-service-area
extends beyond city limits. Clearwater’s park buffers are not park
footprints; its critical-assets layer locates assets, not hazards. The
Pinellas housing layer is a program inventory, not all housing.
Hillsborough transit routes are not a live schedule. The regional
planning council’s storm surge layer is a historical planning model, not
current emergency guidance.
These layers alone do not establish legal boundaries, road
restrictions, service eligibility, or facility status. Comparable
demographic coverage and current flood and environmental coverage across
all six publishers remain limited. Inspect each layer’s
scope_note and source metadata for its own limits. The
current Tampa fire-stations source uses unqualified fields
such as NAME; older joined
GIS.GovServiceInfo.* fields are unavailable.
library(tampaBayOpenData)
info <- tbod_dataset_info("construction-permits")
info[c("title", "source_url", "scope_note", "terms", "verified")]Read scope_note and terms before analysis.
verified records an endpoint check, not feature freshness.
A portal item’s modified date can also differ from its
records’ dates; modified_source distinguishes live item
timestamps from saved catalog snapshots.
Discovered items may change, disappear, or lack clear reuse terms. Inspect their source metadata and publisher terms. The checked catalog remains available offline if a live portal fails.
Keep provenance with results
tbod_provenance() reads a record attached to a retrieved
tibble or sf object. It includes publisher and source URLs,
portal and item ID when known, validation status, query, retrieval time,
row counts, integrity method, and completeness. Direct URL retrieval has
not_checked status.
projects <- tbod_get_dataset("development-cases", spatial = TRUE, out_sr = 4326)
source <- tbod_provenance(projects)
saveRDS(list(data = projects, provenance = source), "development-cases.rds")Save provenance separately before transformations or exports that may discard attributes. A finite subset is marked incomplete when more rows match. Object-ID checks detect missing, duplicate, or unexpected records, but cannot freeze live attributes across requests. See retrieval and downloads for the integrity methods.
Monitoring and evidence
Twice weekly monitoring checks the 52 layers across all six publishers, bounded live discovery, and county facility retrieval by descriptor and stable ID. It also checks server projection to EPSG:4326. Retrievals request at most two rows; scans inspect at most one service item per publisher. The test guide describes these bounds and the manual live suite. The validation record dates completed checks; they cannot guarantee future availability or record freshness.
Cite the package and its data sources
For published work, cite the package version you used. R provides citation text and BibTeX after installation:
Cite the original data publisher and dataset separately.
tbod_dataset_info(id) gives source details;
tbod_provenance(result) records source and retrieval time.
The MIT license applies to the package software, not
government datasets. Publishers set their data terms. The package is
independent of them and of rOpenSci.
For implementation details, see the architecture and research basis.